The bouillotte lamp takes its name from a card game. Bouillotte was the fast, fashionable gambling game of late eighteenth-century France, played into the small hours — and it needed a lamp of its own: candles set low in a dished base that doubled as a tray for chips, under a metal shade that could be lowered along the central stem as the candles burned down, keeping the flames masked and the light on the cards. The shade lowers along the stem — as the candles burned down, the light stayed just above the flames. It is one of the cleverest lighting designs France ever produced, which is why it never went out of production.
This lamp is French, in the Louis XVI style, attributed to the nineteenth or early twentieth century: two scrolled arms with fluted candle sockets on beaded drip pans, springing from a fluted central column that rises from a dished, gadroon-edged circular base, the adjustable shade in tôle painted a deep green, the stem finished with a cast pinecone finial. Slide the shade on its ratchet and the whole design explains itself — every part, from the dished tray to the masking shade, is the anatomy of a card table at midnight. The lamp is electrified with two lights under wax-drip sleeves, fully checked through our workshop before dispatch, fitted with the appropriate plug or adapter for your country, and delivered working and ready to use.
The tôle shade carries its age openly — the green paint worn and marked, with losses at the rim showing metal beneath — and the metal base has mellowed to a soft, even tone; nothing has been prettified, as the photographs show. Whoever played their cards under this lamp before you kept it in service. It belongs on a desk, a library table, or a sideboard.
The lamp stands sixty-one centimetres in metal with its tôle shade, checked and ready to use. It arrives professionally packed and fully insured — we handle the paperwork and worldwide shipping, with all import duties paid by us, so there is nothing to settle on delivery. Returns are accepted within 30 days.
DETAILS:
Height: 61 cm (24 in) · Length: 33.5 cm (13.2 in) · Width: 23.5 cm (9.3 in) — a substantial desk lamp, about the height of a bar stool
Metal frame; adjustable painted tôle shade; pinecone finial; two lights with wax-drip sleeves
Electrical: two lights; checked before dispatch; plug or adapter fitted for the buyer's country; delivered working and ready to use
Condition: good condition for age; shade paint worn with rim losses, even mellowing to metal (see photos)
